The View from the Hermitage, Day 42

The lead article in the Metro section of today's Washington Post is "Experts worry 'quarantine fatigue' is starting." Researchers have looked at smartphone location information and say it indicates the first increase in travel within the US since mid-March, when the pandemic really hit home. People are going out more and not just to necessary places such as the grocery store. Lei Zhang, the lead researcher at the Maryland Transportation Institute at the University of Maryland notes, "We saw something we hoped wasn't happening, but it's there. It seems collectively we're getting a little tired. It looks like people are loosening up on their own to travel more." The declines are not huge--the numbers of people staying home in Fairfax County, Virginia dropped from 46 percent to 44 percent--but they are there.

Virginia's governor and chief health officer have said that there may be some restriction of activity until there is a coronavirus vaccine, which they estimate could take two years. I know a few people who would love to keep teleworking for that time or longer. Teleworking never got old for me, and I did it for twenty-some years.

But what about just staying home? Going nowhere. Existence measured by the distance to the main road or the other cul-de-sac in our small subdivision. I told the husband yesterday, when first reading the comment about its possibly being two years until full activity could resume, that I had no real desire to do out into the world. I'm actually getting spoiled here. I am doing laundry every day (older son leaves his workout clothes when he heads home each morning), but I'm free from another household task that's not my favorite--grocery shopping. That said, I feel bad that older son is doing it for us, to keep us old folks virus-free. I don't think I'd be comfortable with his doing it for two years, though.

I did find myself considering which of various activities I would miss were the current lifestyle to continue. I would miss seeing my mother, though it's not as if I can see her now. And who knows when senior care facilities such as the one in which she lives might relax their restrictions. There are certainly friends I would miss seeing, but I could certainly chat with them on the phone or via Zoom (I still have yet to try that). I would miss working with a trainer, though I guess I could have someone send me workouts to do here. I go somewhat back and forth on quilt guild chapter meetings. I still feel very much as if I don't belong there. People will start talking about some quilter who is a book author or workshop giver, and I've never heard of him or her. I look at the various things brought in for show and tell and know that I could never do the level of workmanship shown. So that one's up in the air. There are certainly people there whom I enjoy seeing; still ...

As someone with no real desire to go to a re-opened anything, I am interested to see what happens with coronavirus rates in two weeks in the states that started to re-open Friday or will start tomorrow. If they have to close everything back up and send people back home, it is not going to be pretty. Once again, I am happy that our governor is a physician and that he seems to have surrounded himself with very reasonable officials. And I do understand that I am not most people when it comes to coping with hermitting. The article cited above concludes with a quote from a public health professor at George Washington University: "The isolation is real. The loneliness is real. We need to add that in our messaging ... We have to acknowledge that it's not easy to stay home."

Tomorrow we start our seventh week staying at home. If it gets harder, I'll let you know.